Koo Kyo-hwan has claimed the top spot on the October movie actor brand reputation rankings, released this week by the Korean Business Research Institute, overtaking Go Youn-jung and Ji Chang-wook to take the No. 1 position.
The rankings were compiled from 116,475,537 pieces of brand big data covering 100 film actors, collected between September 15 and October 15 — down 3.14 percent from September’s 120,255,930 data points, according to a report by Break News.
Koo’s total brand reputation index reached 3,537,917, combining a participation index of 598,832, a media index of 759,535, a communication index of 1,256,916 and a community index of 922,634. That marks a 97.48 percent surge from his September score of 1,791,574.
Go Youn-jung landed in second place with 3,485,880, up 29.70 percent from September, while Ji Chang-wook placed third at 3,425,926 — a 105.00 percent jump from his previous score. Byun Yo-han (3,409,819) and Lee Joon-hyuk (3,150,772) rounded out the top five, followed in the top 30 by names including Shin Min-ah, Kim Hye-soo, Son Ye-jin, Jun Ji-hyun and Hyun Bin.
Institute director Koo Chang-hwan said Koo’s brand showed high-ranking related phrases such as “praise,” “gain response” and “congratulate,” while the keywords “Revival Man,” “married man” and “Lee Ok-seop” drove the conversation. His positivity ratio reached 92.47 percent.
The surge lines up with the box-office momentum of his film “Revival Man: The Red,” which has been riding strong word of mouth among audiences in their 20s and 30s, according to a report by Sports Kyunghyang. In the film, Koo plays Seok-hwan, an unemployed exam-taker whose only asset is groundless confidence, who discovers after dying that he can come back to life within 72 hours — only to find himself chased by mysterious forces. Real-audience reviews cited in the report praised the film’s cool action and its original setup.
Koo also made headlines recently after reports surfaced that he had already registered his marriage with his longtime girlfriend, film director Lee Ok-seop. The actor is known for films including “Peninsula” (2020) and Netflix’s “D.P.” (2021), and was recently confirmed to lead the disaster comedy film “Typhoon” alongside Han Ji-min, Oh Jung-se and Han Sun-hwa.
With two straight months of climbing scores, Koo heads into November’s rankings with strong momentum as “Revival Man: The Red” continues its theatrical run.
